Selasa, Agustus 05, 2008

Well, the date for my thesis oral examination is set. It is on this coming August 12 at 9 am. Huhu,… it is so energy-consuming. I am overwhelmed, but not with the activities and piles of paper. I am overwhelmed with the idea that I have not been in this situation before; fear of being unable to present my thesis well, anxiety, excited, and so on. I am so overwhelmed that I can’t put my energy into something else, like a new small business me and my husband would like to start.

Last night, I told this examination date to my mom and dad. I asked for their blessing so that I can complete this thing. Like any other parents, they gave me their prayer, blessing, and suggestion to face the big day. My lecturer called it a day to show off – showing off your research, showing off your effort for four years. Along with their prayer, my mom told me not to make friends with bencong-bencong.

Why?

As you know, recently any media always presents the gay assassination case. It becomes the issue of the year. And somehow this extensive exploitation on the news cause parental anxiety. All the moms told their children to stay away from gay, including my mom.

I have gay friends, two gay friends. Call them A and W. They run a small-scale beauty salon nearby my house. Me and my husband usually come to their house to do hair treatment or just to chat. They are so friendly. A is the older, he is as old as my dad and he has no single grey hair! He is a good cook and a religious man. W is 10 years younger. He is more talkative, melambai, but he rides his motorcycle anywhere. I’d always like to have my hair cut with him; clean and sleek cut! Well, long story short, they are nice and warm. They never obviously say hi, how are you? Anyway, we’re gay. Your sexual orientation is not something good to talk along with your afternoon tea. They even never have any single dirty sexual word coming out from their mouth. So, I don’t think their preference is a big deal.

Back to thesis, I just received a call from Kiki. She said she have to extend her thesis and her graduation a semester longer because she have a lot of things to do. To back and forth Jakarta-Cirebon to accompany her husband, to take care of her two daughters,to finish her thesis, to set up her house in Perth (She’s planning to move next year with her family), and many things. She is more overwhelmed than me. Nggak bisa konde-konde’an bareng sama elo, pake toga bareng, graduate bareng,… So sad L; because she is one of my best friends. She is not only a good friend, but also a mom for me (She is four years younger than my mom). I will miss her so much LJadi inget waktu kita dulu foto2an di resepsinya Evita,…(Yeeei, Evita is now expecting her first daughter! Congratulations!) Miss you a lot, Ki!

After went through all exhausting process, i finally submitted my S1 thesis on Juli31. Huuuh, it was the latest deadline of thesis submission. Alhamdulillah... Now, it's only the matter of oral examination. The schedule hasn't been published yet, but i guess it will be around August 9-22.

My thesis is about translation issue. The title is :

A Study of assive-to-active Translation Shift in the Dialog of Cerpen Pilihan Kompas 2001 - Mata yang Indah and Its ENglish Translation Kompas Best Short Stories 2001 - Beautiful Eyes

So, it is about why most of the dialog lines in the short story anthology translated into active voice.There is a general assumption that the Indonesians use more passive, but English tend to use active voice. This different perspective led to passive-to-active translation shift. So, i observe the Indonesian passive constructions and see their shift into active, including what pattern that will come up and into what extent this shift is needed to gain natural and equivalent outcome in the target language.

So,... wish me luck ya? I hope i can have A for this thesis. A stands for Anggun, right? hehehe :p